PLUS traffic is broken

[tt_ttf]

My RDS-TMC antenna came in today, after I got home from rush hour. I'm not sure how to tell if/when it expires, but it is definitely working. Traffic is being reported on all the highways. RDS-TMC doesn't hide traffic alerts when the roads match IQroutes speeds, so Boston highways are all yellow/red/orange.

I'm going to take a look whether Tomtom is smart enough to not add the traffic delay to the IQroutes delay, and properly replace the IQroutes road speed with the RDS-TMC speed when calculating routes and arrival times.

I can't really tell whether the antenna replaces the cell phone, or if the sources are added together for combined info. I'll check in morning rush hour if sideroad info shows up, since Clearchannel doesn't have sideroad coverage so it would mean the Tomtom combines the feeds.

Well worth $13, but these wires will be a nuisance in my car.

I bought the same antenna and also got it yesterday

. I tested last night and again this morning and it fired right up and showed a 37min delay on i-405 in Seattle like it should for 8am on a weekday. To make sure the data was from the TMC servers, I turned off the phone data connection on the 730 so there was nothing coming in via the phone.

Removed it and tried the phone PLUS connection - connected, showed green but as I expected it showed all clear which was quite clearly wrong based on google and tv news reports. Last night it was the same, only showing roadwork incidents.

Downside was that the TMC system in Seattle does not have any roadwork data showing nor much in way of anything other than highway data.

The issue is clearly with either the Plus servers or something they updated on the PND end

Well worth the $13 in the short term but damn it I want my PLUS coverage back!!!!

 

[doctormstein1]

attection tomtom support

I think enough is enough. One month of no plus sevice traffic on my 920 is outragous. Starting November 1, 2009 I am seriously thinking about starting a class action lawsuit for a full refund of my unit an any other units of users out their that bought their units because of the plus service traffic feature. Stayed tuned for further information as to how to join this class action suite that may occur. Sorry love tomtom but business is business and I do not like how tomtom is using this countries users.

 

[InfojunkE]

I think enough is enough. One month of no plus sevice traffic on my 920 is outragous. Starting November 1, 2009 I am seriously thinking about starting a class action lawsuit for a full refund of my unit an any other units of users out their that bought their units because of the plus service traffic feature. Stayed tuned for further information as to how to join this class action suite that may occur. Sorry love tomtom but business is business and I do not like how tomtom is using this countries users.

Couldn't agree more, Terrible customer service, and a horrible response time. Please do let me know if you decide to pursue that, and what I can do if anything to help.

 

[Germerican]

My patience is wearing thin as well. Never have my morning commutes been so frustrating. Please keep us posted, if you're seriously considering a class action lawsuit.

 

[dervari]

I have to laugh at how litigious society is today. By the time the class action suit is heard, appealed, and settled, PLUS traffic will probably be antiquated and you'll get a coupon for $10 off a new TomTom GO1430.

Also, I doubt the numbers of people who are using PLUS traffic would interest any firm for such a class action.

But, good luck anyway.

 

[mvl]

A threat of a real class action would get Tomtom's attention. I don't think it would result in a refund of more than $10, but the legal/settlement costs to Tomtom are high and it would focus executive attention onto the issue.

I tried the RDS-TMC this evening, it immediately disables PLUS traffic upon connecting it, so I'm pretty sure it's not attempting to combine data sources.

There was minimal congestion this evening around Boston, so it was hard to assess whether the timeliness and accuracy of the info was better or worse than (properly working) PLUS. The coverage was similar, interstate/highway only.

 

[mikealder]

AI tried the RDS-TMC this evening, it immediately disables PLUS traffic upon connecting it, so I'm pretty sure it's not attempting to combine data sources.

This is correct, as soon as you connect the RDS receiver your device will drop the GPRS based service, for comparison purposes have a look at the traffic map and see how far away you can see incidents using RDS then compare with the GPRS based service.
In the UK we tend to get full country coverage with the GPRS system but with RDS you get around 120 miles radius centered around your location which equates to around two hours driving time - Mike

 

[doctormstein1]

latest reply on plus traffic

Just received the following email. Nothing really new

Thank you for taking the time to contact TomTom Customer Support regarding the plus traffic for your GO 920. My name is Brenda. We are always happy to help.

We can understand why this would be of concern. We are making every effort to correct this issue. Our development team is working diligently on the issue. We do understand this may be frustrating for you and we do apologize for that. We appreciate your patience while this issue is being fixed

My reply was as follows

I would think that the endusers who are affected for the last month with this traffic problem deserve at least an estamate time for this repair. If not, nothing has changed. You can not make statements after one month of problems without some other information. Kindly ask your programmers for this request

 

[dhn]

Good response but, as one who works in the software industry, I can tell you it's never up to the programmers as to what the priorities are but, rather, a production management team.

Hope for the best, though...............

I'll try to contact TT directly on behalf of all North Americans with this problem through a different method. May not help but it won't hurt.

 

[InfojunkE]

I'll try to contact TT directly on behalf of all North Americans with this problem through a different method. May not help but it won't hurt.

That would be awesome!

 

[doctormstein1]

Good response but, as one who works in the software industry, I can tell you it's never up to the programmers as to what the priorities are but, rather, a production management team.

Hope for the best, though...............

I'll try to contact TT directly on behalf of all North Americans with this problem through a different method. May not help but it won't hurt.

The response to my last email was as follows

Thank you for updating your incident. As much as we would like to provide you with a time frame, we do not have one available. Please be assured we have passed your feedback to the proper department for review. At this time we can only apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you. We do so appreciate your patience in this matter

So you see, into the back bookcase


My response was

just on ONE forum their are two hundred and ten emails on this one topic. Don't you think that the people who are working on this problem should give some response as to the estamated repair time. These are devoted users to your product

 

[doctormstein1]

Forum people, now is the time to start a strong email campagne

 

[dervari]

I still think we need a snail mail campaign as well.

 

[mvl]

I've pretty much given up.

The $13 receivers seem to have no expiration date, they must have been surplus from a long time ago when Tomtom didn't have traffic subscriptions.

My receiver does just as good a job as PLUS traffic, for a lot cheaper. I think I'll survive on the RDS-TMC until HD traffic comes out. The extra wires are a bit of a nuisance, is the nuisance worth paying another $60 when my subscriptions up? Don't know.

 

[dervari]

I just wish RDS integrated with IQroutes. In Atlanta, that kind of defeats the purpose of IQroutes. Every interstate in the area would be flagged and you'd be takng an alternate route every day.

 

[mvl]

I set the Tomtom to "fastest" for traffic, so sometimes it takes me through an incident if the delay is less than an alternate. I've gone through enough delays with PLUS that I know it integrates with iQroutes and only show the amount of the delay that is longer than IQroutes time.

Are you sure RDS-TMC doesn't do that? I know Tomtom doesn't control the server, but perhaps the Tomtom does the time subtraction logic client-side. I haven't been routed through enough incidents with the receiver to be sure one way or the other yet.

 

[dervari]

I thought I had read theat somewhere in this thread that it appeared that RDS traffic wasn't taking into account IQroutes because the whole city was lit up like a Xmas tree. Theory was that IQroutes wasn't being taken into consideration.

 

[mvl]

I thought I had read theat somewhere in this thread that it appeared that RDS traffic wasn't taking into account IQroutes because the whole city was lit up like a Xmas tree. Theory was that IQroutes wasn't being taken into consideration.

I heard that a lot too. I also get the Christmas tree, so that's evidence of the same issue.

But in a few spot-check cases where routes.tomtom.com has no flow info, and RDS-TMC does, the RDS-TMC delay didn't seem that long. Sometimes it's only the 1 minute that appears to be the minimum from incident alerts.

There's a chance that the client is subtracting IQroutes - one of these days I'll get routed through one of these big jams, then I can watch the movement (if any) of the arrival time. So far, I've been only routed through two 1-minute delays, and the congestion seems to have been already picked up by IQroutes as the arrival time sped up by a minute as I drove through the congestion.

Or maybe PLUS will be magically fixed and I'll leave the antenna in the trunk for future outages.

But I taught myself something that I highly recommend to others. Keep your music on a separate MP3 with app 8.351. If you're not using the fm transmitter often, leave app 8.302 on the Tomtom internal (store the card somewhere if you want music). 8.302 is very stable - it hasn't crashed yet in weeks of handsfree calling/data.

 

[mikealder]

Navcore 8,351 and earlier treat RDS-TMC information as individual delays, these have no bearing or correlation to the IQ Routes data, only the Live devices when using Live HD Traffic can merge the two data sources - Mike

 

[dervari]

I filed a complaint with the Boston Area BBB and Tomtom actually replied:

We received the following response from the business to your complaint.
Problem adjusted: No
Type of adjustment: No Adjustment
Mr. XXX has contacted the BBB in regards to an issue he is currently having with his TomTom Plus Services. At this time TomTom is aware of the current traffic issue with plus services and are currently working towards a fix. We do not have an ETA on when this issue will be fixed, however we are working towards a solution. The issue is not the TomTom device but how the information is gathered and how it?s disseminated. Once this issue is resolved we will work with Mr. XXX to get this feature working again.